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Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses
Spring 1-1-2012
Engaging Community Food Systems through Learning Garden
Programs: Oregon Food Bank's Seed to Supper Program
Denissia Elizabeth Withers Portland State University
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Withers, Denissia Elizabeth, "Engaging Community Food Systems through Learning Garden Programs: Oregon Food Bank's Seed to Supper Program" (2012).Dissertations and Theses.Paper 609.
Engaging Community Food Systems through Learning Garden Programs: Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper Program by Denissia E. Withers A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Education: Policy, Foundation and Administration Thesis Committee: Heather Burns, Chair Andrew Job Lisa H. Weasel Portland State University 2012
The purpose of this study was to discover whether learning garden programs increase access to locally grown foods and successfully empower and include food insecure populations. This study examined the Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper program which situates garden‐based learning in food insecure communities. Through a mixed‐methods community‐based research process, this study found that community building, learner empowerment and sustainability leadership in place‐ based learning garden programs increased access to locally grown foods for food insecure populations. When food insecure populations participated in these learning garden programs they often engaged in practices described in the literature as the “web of inclusion” (Helgesen, 1995). When food insecure populations were engaged in these practices, participation in food democracy and food justice increased. Additionally, participation in learning gardens led to sustainability leadership and increased access to food literacy, which led to greater community health and engaged, local community food systems.
My gratitude goes out to all my family and friends for helping me through the thesis process. I learned how much patience and faith my closest friends, colleagues and family possess, especially my partner, Ray, who deserves special credit for his dutiful and insightful editing. My mentor, Dr. Lisa H. Weasel, was vital to the research process of this project and helped further my understanding of community‐based research and the relationship building needed to see this project through. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to assist her with the Food, Democracy and Sustainability Capstone at several of the research sites. From this opportunity, I learned the fundamentals of community‐based learning and the theoretical foundations of food democracy. It was my adviser Dr. Heather Burns and the Leadership for Sustainability (LSE) course of study that led me to many discoveries about sustainable leadership and spiritual leadership in education. We bonded and created a synergistic partnership that deepened during the process of organizing and preparing my thesis. I am forever grateful for her inspiration, persistence and patience. I also want to acknowledge Andrew Job for the optimism and sensitivity that he brought to the learning environment and core LSE School of Education courses. I had several epiphanies in his classes that were stimulated by the lectures, readings and the papers; these enhanced my experience and ultimately this paper.
I thank the Seed to Supper participants for taking the time to be interviewed and participate in the survey process. Additionally, I thank the instructors,
addressing food security through learning gardens and other social justice work. And most important, to the community partner, Oregon Food Bank and its program coordinators who assisted in the research process including Rebeca Siplak, Ginny Sorensen and Ali Abbors—thank you all for the community partnership we formed and the work we continue to do. Many of the LSE cohort listened to me talk about my project and I appreciated the warm collegial atmosphere of the program and the generosity of all those who listened and helped along the way. My deepest gratitude to the following individuals: Dr. Hunter Shobe, Tanya Cheeke, Melissa Pirie, Jon Brown, Jemila Hart, Owen Dailey, Marlene Howell, Lisa Durden, Teri Stoeber, Andres Guzman and the McNair Scholars program staff Dr. Toeutu Faaleava and Jolina Kwong.
ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Learning Garden Scene 1: Brookplace: A Growing Learning Garden Community 1 Historic Patterns that have Influenced Food Insecurity and the Rise of Food Banks and Learning Gardens 3 What is Food Insecurity? 3 Agricultural, Economic, and Political Patterns of the Mid‐to‐Late 20th Century 5 1980s‐2000s – The Emphasis on Economic Reform Impacts Food Security 7 The Rise of the Counterculture and its Impact on Food Security 8 The Food Movement of the 2000s: Food Justice, Learning Gardens and Community Food Systems 9 Rise of Food Banks and Learning Gardens 11 Why Study Learning Gardens? 12 The Local Food Movement in the Portland Area: Background for study 14 Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper Program 16 Research Questions and Importance of Study 18 Community Based Research 19 Overview of Chapters 19 Chapter 2: Literature Review 21 Learning Garden Scene 2: Forest Hills a historic community garden 21 Overview to Literature Review 21 Historical Framework for Learning Gardens: What is a Learning Garden? 23 The goals of Sustainability Education 25 Learning Garden Pedagogy 26 Experiential Learning Theory and the Garden 27 Place‐based Learning in the Garden 30 Food Literacy in Garden‐based Learning: A Link to Food Security 32 Ecoliteracy: Concepts of Sustainability in the Garden 35 Community Food Security and Food Democracy & Food Justice 37 Conclusion 41
Chapter 3: Methodology 43 Learning Garden Scene 3: Interview at Bell Tower Community Center: Linking up with Community‐based Research 43 Research Study Background and Development of the Community Partner 45 Research Questions 46 Research Design and Rationale: Community‐Based Research Using Mixed Methods 47 Research Sites 51 Research Participants 54 Data Collection 58 Quantitative: Survey Design and Implementation 59 Design & Sample Questions 59 Survey Implementation 61 Qualitative: Interview Design and Process 62 Interview Design: The Questions 62 Interview Implementation: Framing the Interviews 64 Participant and Nonparticipant Observation, Notetaking, Journaling and photographic Fieldwork 67 Data Analysis 69 Qualitative Data 70 Quantitative Data 71 Validity 73 Limitations 74 The Positionality of the Researcher 75 Significance & Conclusion 77 Chapter 4: Results 78 Learning Garden Scene 4: A Senior Center with a Focus on Fresh Locally‐grown Foods 78 Introduction to Chapter 4 78 Overview to Research Question 1 79 Survey Results: Increased Access to Fresh and Local Foods 79 Interview Responses: Increased Access to Fresh and Local Foods 81 Observations and Comments from Researcher Fieldwork Notes and Photos: Access to Fresh and Local Foods 82 Community Building Leads to Greater Sense of Food Literacy and Access to Local and Fresh Food 84 Overview to Research Question 2 91 Place‐based Learning and Learner Empowerment: Foundations of the Seed to Supper Program 92
Place Based Learning 92
Barriers to Food Security 105 Cost and Availability of Fruits and Vegetables 105 Access to Garden Space 111 Transportation 115 Economic Hardship 119 Overview to Question 4 123 Food Literacy 123 Participant Profile: Food Literacy 129 Self‐Reliance 130 Participant Profile: Self‐Reliance 133 Social Capital 134 Perspective of an Engaged Community Food System 134 Site Profile: Lakeview Correctional Facility Learning Garden Project 136 Conclusion 137 Chapter 5: Discussion, Implications for Practice & Conclusion 138 Learning Garden Scene 5: Community‐Based Learning and Food Democracy 138 Web of Inclusion, Integrated Partnerships and Sustainable Leadership 140 Implications, Best Practices and Policy Change 148 1) Programmatic Best Practices for Educators, Including Site Coordinators and Community Activists 149 Community Building 149 Best Practices for Community Building Through Internal Partnerships 149 Experiential Learning: Recommendations 149 Learner Empowerment and Food Literacy in the Garden Education Curriculum: Recommendations 151 Instructor Training for Enhancing Learner Empowerment: Recommendations 152 Best Practices for Community Building Through External Partnerships 154 Networking and Community Development: Recommendations 154 Mentorship for Sustainable Leadership: Recommendation 155 Best Practices for Encouraging Sustainable Leadership 157 Community Education 158 Community Events 159 1) Programmatic Best Practices for Educators, Including Site Coordinators and Community Activists 161 Place‐based Learning 161 Recommendations for Implementation 163 2) Barriers and Policy Recommendations for Community Leaders and the Public Service Sector 167 Cost 168
– Local (City, County and State) Levels 169 Recommendations for Policy Change to Increase Access to Fresh Foods – Federal level 170 Garden Space 171 Recommendations for Policy Change for Expansion of Available Garden Space 173 Transportation 174 Best Practices and Recommendations for Overcoming Transportation Barriers 174 Economic Hardship 176 Citizenship: Pathways to Food Democracy and Food Justice Implications for Activism: Action and Participation 177 Benefits of Community‐Based Learning 181 Conclusion 182 REFERENCES 184 APPENDICES A. OREGON FOOD BANK LEARNING GARDEN SURVEY 190 B. SEED TO SUPPER PARTICIPANT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 193
1. Seed to Supper Sites for Survey and Fieldwork 53 2. Survey Sites only 54 3. Interview Participant Information – Group 1: Seed to Supper Participants 57 4. Interview Participant Information – Group 2: Seed to Supper Instructors 58 5. Interview Participant Information – Group 3: Community Members and Leaders 58 6. Research Questions and Examples of Survey Questions 60 7. Sample Seed to Supper Participant Interview Questions Linked to Research Questions 62 8. Community Members/Leaders and Seed to Supper Instructors Interview Questions 64 9. Selected Comments from Seed to Supper Participants related to Question 1 82 10.Selected Survey Comments about Classes Survey Question 15 85 11.Selected Seed to Supper Interviewee Comments about Community 87 12.Community Members and Leaders—Group 3 Comments about Value of Community Building 89 13.Responses from Seed to Supper Instructors on the Effectiveness of Program 94 14.Comments from Community Member on Place‐based Learning 96 15.Selected Comments from Seed to Supper Participants on Learner Empowerment 101 16.Comments from Community Members and Leaders about Learner Empowerment 102 17.Aspects that Influence Purchase of Fruits and Vegetables 109 18.The Impact of Cost and the Importance of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables 110 19.Comments about Container Gardening and Comments about Access to Garden Space 112 20.Selected Comments from Seed to Supper Participants Interviews Related to Transportation 118 21.The Impact of Limited Transportation Options on Food Insecure Communities 119
LIST OF FIGURES 1. Demographics for Oregon Food Bank Seed to Supper Survey Respondents 56 2. Example of Survey Questions with Statistical Analysis 72 3. Seed to Supper Survey Question 1 80 4. Seed to Supper Survey Question 2 80 5. Seed to Supper Survey Question 7 80 6. Abundant Garden Bed 83 7. Photo of Garden Signage I 98 8. Photo of Garden Signage II 99 9. Survey Comments about Learner Empowerment 100 10.Barriers to Obtaining Fruits and Vegetables or Growing Your Own 106 11.Survey Results for Additional Items Needed to Grow a Garden 107 12.Frequency of Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables 108 13.Multnomah County Ecoroof Community Garden 114 14.City Hall Community Garden 115 15.Seed to Supper Participant Shopping Patterns 117 16.Participants Agree They Have Enough Experience to Grow Some Fruits and Vegetables 124 17.High Percentages of Seed to Supper Participants have Grown Food Within Two Years 125 18.Seed to Supper Participants Would Like Additional Training 125 19.Percentage of Seed to Supper Participants That Grow Produce 131 20.Web of Inclusion at Brookplace 144 21.Integrated Partnerships: Brookplace 146 22.Integrated Partnerships: Forest Hills 147
Chapter 1: Introduction Learning Garden Scene 1: Brookplace: A Growing Learning Garden Community It was the first annual health fair day at Brookplace Housing Complex in the Portland, Oregon area. The late summer sun shone on the bountiful garden beds as people gathered in groups around the information tables hosted by healthcare professionals talking about food, household safety, and other health‐related topics. The barbeque filled the air with the smell of turkey burgers as the fair goers stood in line for free fresh blueberry smoothies. The Brookplace public housing complex is a bustling, vibrant community and their learning garden is often at the center of this community/neighborhood. The members of the Brookplace community are considered food insecure due to low‐ income levels and the distances they live from affordable local fresh food. However, Brookplace is different from other housing complexes. Members of this community have initiated a learning garden where gardening classes and potlucks take place. Thirty of the residents grow fresh produce in this garden and build relationships with their neighbors while working together. Because of its vibrant community garden, Brookplace is an example of a community working toward a sustainable community food system. Sustainable food systems embrace the values of the sustainability movement by honoring the viability of the natural environment for future generations. Sustainable food systems provide more access to resources used to produce, process, distribute and consume food. Additionally, sustainable food systems empower people within
social, political and economic contexts (Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, 2010). Brookplace shows the potential of learning gardens to promote sustainability, community and empowerment for residents. The Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper learning garden program has been a catalyst and resource for sustainable change at the Brookplace gardens for its members through its goals to create community food security, increase self‐reliance and improve nutrition through food security. The Seed to Supper program is building sustainable community food systems through learning garden workshops, gardening classes and nutritious use of locally grown foods and thus helps communities and neighborhoods make a difference for its members’ food security. The purpose of this study was to discover whether and how learning garden programs such as the Seed to Supper increase participants’ access to locally grown food and successfully include and empower food insecure people and their communities. Historic Patterns that have Influenced Food Insecurity and the Rise of Food Banks and Learning Gardens This chapter explains and defines the background and history of food insecurity and the response from food banks to create local solutions to food insecurity. There are many political and economic patterns that have influenced food insecurity in the United States. The history of recent food insecurity provides context for Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper learning garden program. This chapter begins with an overview of the political and economic underpinnings of learning gardens within the constructs of globalization and the corporatization of food systems—locally, nationally and globally—as well as the role of food banks and
learning gardens within this political system. Historic patterns which have influenced food insecurity and the rise of food banks in the latter 20th century provide a perspective for this study. After examining this historical context, this chapter describes what the local food movement in Portland, Oregon has done to address food insecurity and then specifically introduces Oregon Food Bank’s Learning garden program—Seed to Supper. The chapter concludes with a review of the research questions explored in this study. What is Food Insecurity? By examining food insecurity we can better understand the context for sustainable community food systems in today’s large‐scale globalized corporate food systems. This study examines food insecurity in the United States, and how learning gardens impact local food systems in the Portland, Oregon region. Food security and access to locally‐grown foods have become increasingly difficult for millions of people in the United States. Food security has been defined as the ability for communities of people to have monetary and physical access to healthy and culturally appropriate foods (Hawken, 2007; Winne, 2008). Food security ensures that all people have consistent access to healthy and culturally appropriate foods (Hawken, 2007). Anderson and Cook (1998) describe food security as: … access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life and includes at a minimum: a) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and b) the assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially
acceptable ways (e.g. without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, and other coping strategies). Food insecurity exists whenever [a] or [b] is limited or uncertain (p. 143). Food insecurity is a complex issue in today’s globalized food system and activist Paul Hawken (2007) advocates for both national food supplies and policies, and for personal self‐sufficiency, thus creating balance between subsidized foods and the knowledge and land available to grow food locally and for exports. According to Hawken (2007) food systems have become a complex balance in a growing global economy. The lack of food security has developed from many decades of economic and agricultural policies that have created a global (large‐scale and centralized) food system that has disrupted local and sustainable community food systems. Large‐scaled food systems have created barriers for access to locally grown and culturally appropriate foods for many populations (Winne, 2008; Poppendieck, 1998). The agricultural shifts implemented during and following the Green Revolution that took place in the mid 20th century have had an impact on local food systems and contributed to changes in food patterns. During the Green Revolution, the economic and political landscape adapted from supporting smaller‐scaled agrarian philosophies and practices to supporting larger‐scaled chemical and technological systems.
Agricultural, Economic, and Political Patterns of the mid‐to‐late 20th Century
The Green Revolution was an extraordinary moment in the history of modern food systems that changed patterns of agriculture throughout the globe. Initially sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation (McMichaels, 2008), the “paquete tecnológico or technological package began in Mexico,” (Barndt, 2008) and included hybrid seeds, agrochemicals, large‐scale water systems and heavy duty farming machinery that introduced a new and modern way to raise crops. This industrialization of agriculture spread throughout the third world to developing countries and became know as the Green Revolution (Barndt, 2008). The Green Revolution promised to eradicate hunger and food insecurity worldwide and insured that U.S. agricultural interests would prosper and feed the world (McMichaels, 2008). This trend developed throughout the 1940s and 1950s and prospered into the 1970s impacting small‐scaled agricultural traditions. During the 1970s, the creation of a large scaled, global and centralized food system developed along side the rise of a free‐market economy. As free‐market and neoliberal economic policies of the 1970s shifted the government support of federally funded social welfare programs to the private sector, the social safety nets of the 1960s War on Poverty began to disappear (McMichaels, 2008; Poppendieck, 1998). These safety nets included food stamps, welfare, public housing, the Head start program for underprivileged children, affordable higher education and other basic entitlements. This decline of publically supported safety net programs created the need for food banks and programs to help food insecure populations.
As safety net programs declined, food insecurity was exacerbated by large‐ scale population shifts in cities and rural communities as well as economic decline due to the oil embargo of the 1970s, decreased manufacturing jobs and diminishing natural resources (Winne, 2008). In the United States, these trends translated into fewer lucrative manufacturing jobs and a growing insecurity about the environment and the resources that had been taken for granted by post WWII populations. Digging into the complexity of the United States’ hunger issues, the beginnings of global economic policies supported by the United Nations’ New International Economic Order (NIEO) in the 1970s, focused on large‐scale corporate world order and less government/nation‐state controls (McMichaels, 2008). This UN policy played a role in both the growing food insecurity and the development of industrialized global food systems. As global food systems prospered for transnational corporate interests and profits, the phenomenon of the “paradox of hunger” amid the plenty, impacted many populations throughout the world (McMichaels, 2008; Poppendieck, 1998). In the United States, emergency food programs and hunger relief efforts began to form in the 1970s and 1980s, and food banks began to re‐distribute the food surpluses generated from the industrialized and global food systems. The United States, the land of plenty, experienced growing food insecurity in urban settings and lack of access to affordable and healthy foods for increasing numbers of communities (Winne, 2008). Food deserts began to emerge in urban settings. As middle class populations vacated urban centers for the suburbs in the 1970s, supermarkets, with
vast selections and affordable products, also vacated to the suburbs, leaving behind fast food convenient stores and restaurants to fill in the gaps (Winne, 2008). The USDA defines a food desert as a “lowincome census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store” (Ver Ploeg, et al.). Food deserts proliferated on the landscape as the urban to suburban migrations continued through the 1980s. 1980s‐2000s: Emphasis on Economic Reform Impacts Food Security The earlier economic and agricultural policies explained above would set the scene for later expansion of corporate driven food systems. Local food systems and social safety net systems declined at the same time and impacted food security. With the momentum for less government spending on social safety nets, the 1980s firmly established free market ideologies and neoliberal economics that dominated America’s food systems (McMichaels, 2008; Poppendieck, 1998; Winne, 2008). The ideology of a trickle‐down economy that would take care of the hungry through increased private charity and the power of individual giving was instituted. In the 1980s, food banks were growing in numbers in order to accommodate the increasing number of food insecure communities (Poppendieck, 1998; Winne, 2008). Following the free market reforms of Reagan administration in the 1980s, in the 1990s the Clinton administration instigated welfare reform, with reductions in welfare support and stricter enforcement of food stamp policies. In the new political climate of the 1990s Clinton administration, where poverty was once managed, “we were ending welfare, not poverty, as we knew it”
(Winne, 2008, p. xx). Emergency food activists, researchers and social justice advocates Poppendieck (1998), Winne (2008), and Gottlieb & Joshi (2010) cite this critical policy change as a pivotal point for America’s hunger relief agencies. This powerful ideological change has had a direct impact on today’s hunger relief policies, which focus on eliminating hunger at its roots and on the proliferation of self‐reliance programs including urban learning garden programs. The Rise of the Counterculture and its Impact on Food Security The rise of America’s hunger relief programs along with community learning gardens was also impacted by the counterculture response to industrialized food systems of the latter 20th century. The counterculture response has had an impact on today’s food justice and community food systems (Belasco, 2007; Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010). The second half of the 20th century was a period of declining access to healthy and locally‐produced foods. At the same time, an interest in and revival of “growing your own food” and the “back to nature movement” co‐existed and was growing steadily into a full‐blown food movement. Belasco (2007) has written a chronicle of the counterculture response to the industrialization of food, documenting that much of the liberal response to the “mainstream food‐military‐ industrial complex… was seen as industrialism gone berserk, wrecking the delicate balances of eternity” (p. 25). The new left was disillusioned and observed worldwide symptoms of ecological imbalance (Belasco, 2007). According to Belasco (2007), the early counterculture food movement created a consumerism that
eventually developed into natural foods branding and the organic food movement. This early rendition of the local food movement from the 1970s has grown and more recently has turned its attention from organic and safe foods to locally‐grown foods and to the promotion of food justice and sustainability. The Food Movement of the 2000s: Food Justice, Learning Gardens and Community Food Systems As food justice and sustainability agendas influenced the food movement of the 2000s, grassroots groups and local communities took action. Winne (2008) describes the outcomes of these grassroots efforts to create community food systems as a time when farmers markets, community supported agriculture farms, and community gardens were “exploding in numbers” and food democracy was being cultivated by local organizations and food policy councils. There has been an emphasis on economic and social justice (Winne, 2008, p. x). These local food activities, with a history spanning four decades, have fostered and gained strength in the sustainability movements of the 21st century. The food justice and sustainability movements have been closely aligned with the environmental movement through the use of activism and grassroots efforts (Hawken, 2007; Gottleib & Joshi, 2010). Both the sustainability and food justice movements focus on social disparities and core issues of equity, empowerment, and social change. Food justice advocates strive to build healthier food systems (Gottleib & Joshi, 2010). Central to food justice is a clear definition of “food system.” Gottleib & Joshi (2010) write: “a food system is best
described as the entire set of activities and relationships that make up various food pathways from seed to table and how these might influence our foods and communities” (p. 5). With these food pathways clearly defined, many food justice groups mobilized to create local solutions to help alleviate food insecurity (Winne, 2008). One solution brought about by the influence of environmental activism and the sustainability movement contributed to a national obsession with community gardening (Lawson, 2005). Food banks began to use learning gardens as an educational tool to promote self‐reliance and improve access to fresh locally grown foods. Just as the counterculture advocated for growing one’s own food in the 1970s, food justice advocates have focused on community learning garden programs in the 2000s as a remedy for food insecurity and as a way to build local networks for sustainable food systems. The development of sustainable local food systems has been used to create strategies to address many of the inequities affecting our society and environment due to an unsustainable and unjust food system (Gottbieb & Joshi, 2010). The learning garden is included as one of the strategies to address food insecurity and to create spaces that empower individuals within the context of self‐reliance. In response to a dramatic and environmentally damaging industrial food system, the rise of food banks, and programs like the Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper learning
garden program, have contributed to a surge of activity and concern over the United States’ increasing food insecure populations. Rise of Food Banks and Learning Gardens With the growing numbers of food insecure populations, food banks were forced to create larger emergency food distribution centers and to develop social services to accommodate the lack of social safety nets (Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010; Poppendieck, 1998; Winne, 2008). Recent statistics from the USDA, (2012) reveal in record numbers that approximately 44.7 million Americans are receiving food stamps, renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the 2008 Farm Bill. While the combined forces of economic decline, global warming, diminishing supplies of natural resources, and exploding human populations impact our planet, the local food banks and food justice activists have made efforts to assist underserved urban areas with programs such as learning gardens, farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture (Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010; Winne, 2008). As food security in the United States has become unstable, food banks have stepped in to help alleviate hunger and food insecurity through emergency food systems. Fisher (2005), in his opening comments to the Community Food Security Coalition postulated that no group has taken on the role of alleviating food insecurity better than the network of food banks throughout the U.S. These groups have tried to shape the economic and political policies that often cause hunger including poverty, joblessness, lack of health care and education. Fisher states:
…increasingly, groups such as food banks, shelters, and churches, while continuing to feed people in hunger and house the homeless, are sponsoring food security related programs that included food sector job training, nutrition education, healthier food choices, community gardens, links to local farms, and economic development (2005, p. 4). Why have food banks taken on these multiple roles? And how can a learning garden improve food security? The answers to these questions unfold as we examine what the learning garden can teach us. The learning garden has captured the collective imagination of United States (Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010). The recent garden installation at the White House illustrates the renewed emphasis on growing our own food. As briefly described, the role of food banks has a forty‐year history stemming from the economic and political activities from the 1940s through the 2000s that have influenced our food systems. Within this context, learning gardens have become places for creating food access, empowerment, food literacy and sustainability. Why Study Learning Gardens? Learning gardens have been loosely defined over the decades and often have been referred to as victory gardens, community gardens or urban learning gardens. Many learning gardens have been affiliated with children and schools and for at‐risk students and adults (Lawson, 2005). For the purpose of this study, the working definition for Garden‐Based Learning (GBL), as described by Desmond, Grieshop and Subramaniam (2002) best defines a learning garden as: … “simply an instructional strategy that utilizes a garden as a teaching tool. The pedagogy is
based on experiential education, which is applied in the living laboratory of the garden” (p. 9). While learning gardens have proliferated throughout history during economic hard times, and are often seen as a “panacea” for building self reliance and empowerment, there is also the fear that “they can become a tool for paternalistic goals or [that] the goals become too broad to be achievable”(Lawson, 2005, p. 293). Much of what we attribute to learning gardens and the altruistic themes that embody them have not been thoroughly researched over the past few centuries and anecdotal evidence is largely what academics, urban planners and educators have used to base much of the discussion about learning gardens (Lawson, 2005). Lawson (2005) writes, “the downside is the high ideals associated with gardening rarely can be documented or verified. The tendency to layer multiple agendas on gardens makes achievable objectives difficult to ascertain…” (p. 11). This lack of evidence‐based research motivated this research focusing on the learning garden in the social context of food security and access to locally grown foods as well as notion that these programs can build self‐reliance through learning gardens. The next section addresses the local food movement in Portland, Oregon and its focus on increased access to locally grown foods, and the importance of sustainability in the local food movement. This study analyzes the Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper Program within the context of equitable and fair distribution of power. Specifically, this study looked at how the Seed to Supper program impacts access to locally grown food.
The Local Food Movement in the Portland Area: Background for Study In 2009, a preliminary study sponsored by the McNair Scholar Program, allowed for an analysis of one segment of Portland, Oregon’s burgeoning local food movement—learning gardens that focused on food insecure families and access to locally grown foods. Several learning garden programs initiated programs and spaces for food insecure people to learn about growing their own food. The Oregon Food Bank (OFB) and its Learning Garden Program‐‐Seed to Supper agreed to work with me as a researcher and garden educator to help them analyze the effectiveness of their program. Portland, Oregon is considered one of the leading sustainable and “green” cities in the United States, and supports a growing urban agriculture community. There are dozens of community gardens and learning gardens located in neighborhoods throughout the city and surrounding communities. Community supported agriculture (CSA), farmer’s markets and food co‐ops have prospered and grown in membership and participation over the past decades and Portland ranks high in sustainability areas such as land use planning, recycling, green buildings and green economies. Sustainability has become a focal point in Portland with a movement toward local, earth‐friendly food and public health policies to support these trends. There is a growing movement to integrate these trends and create a more unified approach to food policy and social justice with sustainability and public health in mind. Portland formed its own Food Policy Council in 2004 confirming its role as a
progressive city dedicated to creating a sustainable model. However, the lack of a national food policy has been identified as a major issue for the 21st century by authors and activists Michael Pollan (2008), Francis Moore & Anna Lappé (2002), and Mark Winne (2008). In absence of national policies, cities like Portland help to lead the way and set the standard for a national food policy. Several Portland community leaders have identified the need to integrate cultural and economic diversity when addressing food security issues in the Portland region (Withers, 2010). They point to areas of Portland where there are few options to low‐income families in terms of obtaining healthy fresh foods. In addition to the economic disparity that plagues many families in our community, commercial agribusiness and its retail culture offer few nutritious foods to low‐ income families. Many street intersections in business and neighborhood sections throughout the city offer only fast‐food restaurants or convenience stores on each corner. Research and investigative reporting by authors like Eric Schlosser (2001) and documentaries such as Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock (2004) have shown that the food sold in these establishments is highly processed and lacks nutritional quality. Many neighborhoods in Portland offer little more than fast and convenience foods creating “fresh‐food deserts” for inhabitants. It is in this landscape and political setting that the Oregon Food Bank works to counter food insecurity. Community learning gardens are one alternative to the prevailing fast food culture. Additionally, diverse populations often embrace gardening and bring their knowledge to learning garden programs and the community (Withers, 2010).
Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper Program The Oregon Food Bank (OFB), initially called Oregon Food Share, was founded in 1982 when revenue losses from decreased food and timber industries had statewide impact on hunger statistics. The mission statement of OFB has focused on “eliminating hunger and its root causes…because no one should be hungry” (OFB, n.d.). Now a hub for over 900 hunger‐relief agencies, in 2010/2011 the Food Bank distributed over one million food boxes throughout the state. In addition to delivery of 91 million pounds of food donations, the OFB has developed an effective public policy advocacy program, nutrition and learning gardens program, and several community partnerships advocating for community food systems including FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together), RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments) and Food for Oregon. This proactive approach effectively results in substantial poundage of food donations generated locally, statewide and through donations from national food programs like Feeding America, formally known as Second Harvest. Feeding America is the nation’s food bank network and a major clearing house of Food Industry giants like ConAgra, Kroeger, WalMart, Nestle, and Cargill. Oregon Food Bank is a premier example of a food bank that delivers food to the needy. As Executive Director of Feeding America Bill Ayres notes in Building The Bridge: Linking Food Banks and Community Food Security, “Food bankers know that for hunger to end, people must be empowered to achieve self‐reliance” (Fisher, 2005). Additionally, he writes that:
Food bankers have always seen themselves as a part of the community as a whole…as the Community Food Security movement has grown, food bankers have joined its efforts to ensure that every community has access to safe, nutritious, affordable food… many food banks today have their gardens, farms, farm stands and partner with Community Supported Agriculture, resulting in more fresh food for hungry people (Fisher, 2005, p. 3). Oregon Food Bank, noted in the field for its achievements as a food bank, both in terms of the amount and quality of food given as well as its creative advocacy programming, is featured as an example in Winne’s (2008) Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty and in Fisher’s (2005) status report on the comprehensive work of U.S. food banks and their linkage to Community Food Security. The fact that America’s food banks have become clearing‐houses for social services to aid America’s food insecure and at the same time promote programs that build self‐reliance is a key factor that influenced the development of this study of the Seed to Supper learning garden program.
The Seed to Supper learning garden program was founded in 2004 as one of OFB’s initiatives for building food security through improved nutrition, community food security and self‐reliance. Other OFB learning garden programs include:
Cultivating Community, for at‐risk youth, and Dig In, a community gardening
program for members at large to grow and donate fresh organic produce to the food bank. The Seed to Supper program partners with local and state social service
agencies to host and teach basic gardening classes. The demographic for the Seed to Supper participants correlates with the general demographic data for those receiving a monthly emergency food box (Oregon Food Bank, 2080). Agencies affiliated with housing authorities, community centers, Head Start and other hunger‐relief agencies host gardening classes, workshops and information fairs to aid participants in growing fresh produce, preparing nutritious foods and learning new life skills. This study grew from a preliminary study conducted in 2009, which
indicated that low‐income participants in the Seed to Supper Program did not shop at the farmers markets or use Community Supported Agriculture (other than OFB programs). However, the results of the 2009 study have shown the social impacts of community building, nutrition, education and increased self‐sufficiency on
participants can improve access to locally grown foods (Withers, 2010). Additionally, Seed to Supper participants readily offered suggestions and recommendations for program improvement.
Research Questions and Importance of Study
This study looks at food equity and access within the context of urban agriculture and place‐based learning in the Seed to Supper program. The basic research questions are: 1) How does the Seed to Supper Program impact food insecure communities and their access to fresh grown and local foods? 2) How are the goals of the Seed to Supper framed/designed and presented in the served communities? 3) Do these goals accomplish the overarching need for increased
food security in urban and peri‐urban Portland? 4) Does the Seed to Supper Program improve food literacy, self‐reliance and create social capital? Communitybased Research This study is an example of how collaboration between the academy and the community can bring about change by working with participants and their ideas for improving their learning gardens. My goal is to bring the voices of these gardeners and the results of their efforts to public policymakers that promote Community Food Security. Heffner, Zandee, and Schwander (2003) assert that “Community‐ based research can be a bridge between the academy and the community, providing a forum for building relationships, learning from one another and working together for social change” (p. 127).
In this case, the community partner – OFB/Seed to Supper—was seeking information on the results of the program and solutions to improve the program. Many of the initial results and recommendations have already been presented to Oregon Food Bank and other community partners and have led to changes and additional partnerships to the program and participating communities. Overview of Chapters The following chapters include a literature review that examines the history of learning gardens, garden‐based pedagogy, and an overview of food insecurity concepts within the framework of community food security and food democracy. Chapter three focuses on this study’s research methodologies, including information on how the study was conduced and who participated. Additionally, I include my
personal background experience as a researcher and the impact this research had on the sites where I conducted this study. Chapter four describes the results of the study. The final chapter includes a discussion of the discoveries and the relevance this paper could have on programmatic changes, public policy and food justice. This discussion describes the implications for empowering food insecure populations through active citizenship and pathways to food democracy and food justice. Finally, Chapter 5 includes a discussion on how community‐based research and the participation of the academy can impact local change and policy and engage community food systems. At the beginning of each chapter in this thesis, a brief description from one of the learning gardens scenes opens the chapter. These thematic scenarios introduce the content of the chapters and the characteristics from that learning garden community. All the site names are pseudonyms. The following chapter focuses on the literature related to this study’s focus on learning garden programs.
Chapter 2: Literature Review Learning Garden Scene 2: Forest Hills: a Historic Community Garden The recently restored learning garden at Forest Hills public housing project, originally designed and built in the mid‐1940s, is also Oregon’s first public housing project. As World War II ended, victory gardens still had a place in small communities to ensure food security for its members. The Forest Hills community garden was designed for a half‐acre plot at the center of the housing project. Over time the garden fell out of use and was abandoned by the 1980s. In 2009, a services coordinator for Forest Hills Housing Complex, with the support of the community, decided to restore the garden to its original site. Today, the Forest Hills community garden is coming back to life through on‐site garden programs, including Oregon Food Bank’s Seed to Supper gardening classes, healthy cooking classes, a children’s garden, a community composting system and a plant identification system for the garden created in partnership with a Portland State University capstone course. The community garden is open to members of Forest Hills public housing project and access to locally–grown foods increases with their participation in the learning garden program. This historic community learning garden site sets the scene for this chapter’s focus on the literature, which captures how learning garden programs impact food insecure populations. Overview to Literature Review This literature review discusses research and theories showing the relationship between community food security, sustainability education as well as
how these concepts impact local, sustainable community food systems. After providing a brief history of learning gardens and sustainability goals, this chapter examines educational theories of the past century and how they have influenced garden‐based education and place‐based learning. Then, through the lens of garden‐based education, this chapter explores food literacy and its connection to food security. Next, this literature review examines the importance of ecoliteracy (ecological literacy) and the sustainability movement in education to garden‐based learning because learning gardens have become vital places to convey the goals of both ecoliteracy and sustainability movements (Gaylie, 2009). Following the discussion about sustainability education, this review seeks to explore the relationship between community food security, food democracy and food justice. According to community food security advocates, food democracy and food justice are evident in communities with improved food security (Gottleib & Joshi, 2010; Winne, Hugh and Fisher, 1997; Winne 2008). Furthermore, as the literature indicates, there is an assumption that garden‐based learning may empower and help facilitate food equity and access (Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010; Nordahl, 2009; Winne, 2008). Food advocacy groups such as the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) movement have identified food inequities economic and social in our infrastructures that impede access and create daunting barriers to culturally appropriate foods for many low‐income populations. For the purpose of this study “low‐income”
populations are henceforth described as “food insecure”(Poppendieck, 1998, Winne, 2008). Historical framework for Learning Gardens: What is a Learning Larden? As the Forest Hills learning garden has shown learning gardens have the potential to help food insecure populations access local foods. This study begins with a description of the history of learning gardens and of the impact this history has had on today’s learning garden programs. The history of learning gardens reveals patterns and trends that portray the garden as a tool to empower people and improve their access to fresh locally‐grown and culturally appropriate foods (Lawson, 2005; Winne, 2008)). The Seed to Supper program is similarly modeled after learning garden programs designed in the early 1900s and the goals are also similar – to empower and build self‐reliance, to beautify, and to improve access to locally‐grown foods thereby alleviating food insecurity. Anecdotal portrayals of the garden as a paradise, where humans can co‐exist with nature in harmony without much resistance, dominate much of the literature about gardens (Hondagneu‐ Sotelo, 2010). The garden as a paradise is a cultural assumption found throughout the literature. If gardens serve as a place to teach self‐reliance, increase access to foods and empower people, then a brief overview of the history may determine whether there is a connection between learning gardens and food security. The definition of learning gardens can be traced over 100 years‐‐dating back to the 1890s when urban and community garden development in United States expanded. Learning gardens have served many social, economic and educational
purposes. Laura Lawson (2005) has described some of these historic meanings of learning gardens over time, and postulates through her extensive research of garden programs in America that many of the assertions and claims about the benefits of learning gardens “were largely anecdotal” (xv). She also found the presence of learning garden “projects” practicing similar “patterns in organizational development, with typical justifications and goals for these projects” (xv). Public support for these projects has proven to be cyclical with stronger financial support during economic hard times, and often little support once “public attention shifted” (Lawson, 2005, p. xv). Lawson’s (2005) historical analysis in the book, City Bountiful: A century of community gardening in America has found that “in times of crisis, the neighborhood garden becomes a place to go, to get active, to meet neighbors and to make life more palatable” (p. 292). As early as the 1890s, vacant lots were developed into community gardens to assist unemployed laborers in Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia (p. 1). In addition to this social/economic reform activity, education reformers focused on developing urban gardens in vacant lots and in schoolyards in order to promote “interactive teaching venues that correlated with school subjects and taught civics and good work habits” (p. 1). As early as the 1890s, school gardens became a national movement, and by 1914 the U.S. government formed a special office in the federal Bureau of Education dedicated to school gardens called the Division of Home and School Gardening (Lawson, 2005).
Considering this historical perspective, much contemporary thinking about learning gardens and garden‐based learning seems to derive from previous philosophies related to gardening and education. UN researcher, Subramainam, (2002) states: “The philosophy behind garden‐based education is actually an amalgamation of the philosophies behind experiential education, ecological literacy and environmental awareness, and agricultural literacy” (p. 1). The history of learning gardens emphasizes the capacity of urban gardens to remedy our social ills, provide beautification, bring nature to our cities, and act as a place to further our knowledge base (Lawson, 2005). Lawson (2005) writes that urban garden programs were designed to improve urban conditions. At a time of great social and economic change in the United States of America, urban gardens improved housing situations and provided tangible outcomes that appealed to the general public. The success of these types of garden programs was repeated over time and today’s successful learning garden programs grow out of this history and purpose. The Goals of Sustainability Education In addition to the history of learning gardens, the goals of sustainability frame learning gardens as a tool for sustainability education. Gaylie (2009) asserts that learning gardens play a transformative role in addressing sustainability education goals and aid in providing common spaces for community engagement. This view is consistent with recent sustainability goals set by international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These sustainability goals were formulated to address the
mounting environmental concerns of the 20th and 21st centuries. UNESCO has set the objectives for the UN decade of sustainable education (2005 – 2014) which “seeks to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning, in order to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental issues we face in the 21st century” (UNESCO, 2012). Sustainability education “aims to help people to develop the attitudes, skills, perspectives and knowledge to make informed decisions and act upon them for the benefit of themselves and others, now and in the future” (UNESCO, 2012, p. 2). Although prescriptive in nature, these goals have shaped and impacted the development of garden‐based learning for furthering sustainability goals through the living laboratory of a learning garden. If the learning garden can help alleviate food insecurity and address some of the barriers to accessing locally grown foods, this outcome will contribute to the furtherance of sustainability goals. This study posits that the learning garden is well positioned to serve as an educational tool to expand community solutions for sustainable social ecosystems to support local, sustainable food systems. The next section looks at specific learning garden pedagogy and its importance to learning garden programs. Learning Garden Pedagogy Because of the nature of the learning garden as a hands‐on experiential learning process, programs like the Seed to Supper have adopted teaching methods that draw on experiential learning pedagogy. The learning garden provides an alternative to the classroom as well as access to an outdoor learning environment
